Tag: epistle to the romans

Romans 8:1-8 – The Privilege of Life in the Spirit

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. (New International Version)

It is a great privilege to be a Christian and possess God’s own Spirit in our lives. There are four privileges of the Christian to take note of so that believers can truly live in the Spirit and not in the flesh (sinful nature).

First Privilege: There is now no condemnation.   

No condemnation means “without judgment.” God pronounced a verdict, and the decision is final. We are united to Christ by means of God’s Spirit. Since God does not condemn us, there is no need whatsoever to condemn ourselves or other people.

Since we do not sit under judgment, believe the sin issue has been taken care of once for all through the life and death of Christ. If you do not feel forgiven, then put yourself in a position to believe. Allow the Holy Spirit of God to take the redemption of Christ and apply it to your life in a real and practical way.

It would be silly to go into the bathroom, turn on the shower, then just stand in the middle of the bathroom without getting under the showerhead. Because you did not put yourself in a position to become clean! You may passionately believe a shower, soap, and shampoo will make you clean. Yet, if you do not actually avail yourself of the privilege of taking the shower but just stand there and look at it, you will not become clean. 

We must put ourselves in a position to experience the privilege of God’s grace, our wonderful state of cleanliness, and the lack of condemnation through reading the Word of God on a regular basis; praying in the Spirit on all occasions; and practicing the silence and solitude necessary to receive the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit.

An illustration of marriage might help us understand both our reality and our responsibility. Two people are declared “married” in a formal wedding ceremony. The couple then works out their shared union together over a lifetime. The Minister does not pronounce condemnation at the ceremony but declares a blessing.

From that point forward the two persons must work on their marriage. They must believe their relationship is important enough to warrant putting themselves in a position to grow together by intentionally doing things like creating date nights and conversations on the couch; learning, appreciating, and participating in the other’s interests and life. 

God is not opposed to effort – but to the notion that we save ourselves. Just as we do not marry ourselves and pronounce ourselves a married couple, so we do not save ourselves. Having a marriage license in hand does not mean there is no effort to be done in the relationship. A marriage is both a legal reality, and a kind of mystical union between the spouses.

Second Privilege: Freedom from sin and death.

In Holy Scripture, sin is not only personal struggle but an ever-present reality in the world. Unfortunately, the power and presence of sin is everywhere within people, institutions, and systems. Because sin is everywhere, death is everywhere. Biblically, death refers not only to the body, yet also to the spirit. Death is a relational term. It’s to be separated from God, apart from a relationship. Conversely, life is connection, to be in union with God. 

God sent the Son. God’s Son became incarnate, a sin-offering, an atoning sacrifice for our sins. God condemned sin in sinful humanity. God met the righteous requirements of the law. God effects holiness in us by means of the Spirit. 

Rather than saving us from sin then simply telling us to live a holy upright life, God the Father and Son sent God the Holy Spirit to indwell us so that we can live like Jesus. Therefore, we must put ourselves in a position to experience this saving work through dwelling in the Scriptures and letting the Spirit and the Word effect practical change in our lives. 

I often quote Scripture from memory. I don’t really set out to memorize Scripture so much as I set out to dwell in it to the degree that it ends-up becoming a part of me. The goal is to become awash by the Spirit and the Word so that in every decision, in everything said, and in each action, we are moved by the Holy Spirit.

Third Privilege: We possess the mind of Christ.

The rub of the problem all Christians face, living in a sinful world, has to do with our mindset. What occupies our minds is what determines whether we will have life and peace, or not. 

If the object of our thoughts is continually away from Christ and the Spirit, we will have loose thinking.  If we put ourselves in a position to indulge the sinful nature, it will affect our mindset. Our mental choices can lead to life or death.

For example, alcoholics know they have two choices: the way of life or the way of death. The first step of the twelve steps is to admit powerlessness over alcohol and that my life has become unmanageable. The second step is to believe a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. The third step is to turn life and will to that Power. 

We are powerless over sin, which will, if left unchecked, lead to death. Yet, in the Spirit, we have the possibility of life. Sin, like alcohol, is a daily possibility, even after giving my life and will to God. However, there is also the possibility of life. And that hope of life is what we possess when we have the mind of Christ and the Spirit. We hope through the power of the Spirit to overcome death, embracing choices which lead to life.

The Spirit is not some vitamin supplement to the Christian life, or a protein shake that helps us become healthy.  The Spirit is life and peace, a person, not simply a force. The Spirit brings us the practical benefits of new life in Christ. So, what we put into our minds is vitally important. It’s not about willpower but about putting oneself in a position to receive spiritual power to mold, make, and change us.

Relying solely on willpower is setting yourself up for a crash. Evidence-based studies repeatedly demonstrate that we as people tend to overestimate how much self-control we will have against temptation when we are not in the “heat of the moment.” We too easily believe we can handle more temptation than we can.

Those who are most confident about their self-control are the most likely to succumb to temptation. The key avoiding situations where vices thrive and, most importantly, for individuals to maintain a humble view of their willpower.

Fourth Privilege: The Holy Spirit indwells us.

The Spirit is the distinguishing mark of the Christian life. The Spirit opposes the sinful nature and expects us to do the same. We need not live the Christian life on our own power because of the Holy Spirit. 

There is an internal struggle within us that desires to do right but has a compulsion to do otherwise. It’s the indwelling Spirit that gives us victory. Christ’s life, as much as his death, achieved salvation from sin for us. The very same Spirit that helped Jesus in life and raised him from death belongs to us!

When I was a kid, I remember my grandmother canning grape preserves. I sat on a stool in the kitchen and watched her, looking forward to yummy grape goodness on my next piece of toast. I once asked Grandma, “Why are you always melting that wax over the fruit?” I didn’t understand how wax could make my toast taste any better. She answered, “The wax seals the jar tightly so the fruit can’t be contaminated. If I didn’t seal it, the fruit would eventually rot.” 

You and I are God’s preserves. God not only chooses, redeems, and calls us; the Lord also has a plan for preserving us – to give us the indwelling Spirit so that we can live free from sin and do the will of God.

So, may Christians everywhere appreciate the privileges of no condemnation, freedom from sin, possessing the mind of Christ, and the power of the indwelling Spirit. May you avail yourselves of the Spirit and experience life and peace so that you will love God, love one another, and love the world through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Almighty God, fill us with the knowledge of your will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Help us to live worthy of the Lord Jesus and to please him in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power according to your glorious might so that we may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to you. For you, Lord, have rescued us from the dominion of darkness and have brought us into the kingdom of the Son you love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Amen.

Pentecost: Where We Want to Be, and Where We Are

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8:22-27, NIV)

Pentecostal Groanings

“Pentecost” is the Latin word for “fifty.” Each year, fifty days after Easter, Christians celebrate the Holy Spirit coming upon the early church with power. This Pentecostal energy is not just dynamite with an explosion of spiritual gifts and energizing ministry. Spiritual power certainly is and can be optimistic, positive, and full of faith. 

More than that, Holy Spirit power can also be found in the travails and tribulations we face. It can be discovered in the dark night of the soul, in times of loneliness and doubt, and in the constant need for prayerful intercession. The Spirit is both a mighty wind and a gentle breeze.

The good news of Pentecost is that when we are not powerful, the Spirit helps us in our weakness – that is our hope and our quiet strength. The Apostle Paul used the experience of childbirth to communicate and illustrate what the experience of the Christian life is like. Growth, wonder, expectation, hope, patience, pain, and joy are all words to describe pregnancy and childbirth. 

Pentecostal Prayer

When it comes to the Church and the Christian life, believers are in the gestation period. Our salvation has not yet come to full term. Meanwhile, we must remain encouraged and healthy, keeping our future hope always in front of us so that we will not lose heart. When we are limited in what we can do, we pray. When we are flat on our backs, overwhelmed with our circumstances, we may not be able to utter any words in prayer.

My dear wife and I know something about pregnancy and prayer. We did not know, twenty-six years ago, whether we would have our third child, or not. Our lives were turned upside-down for nearly four months, as we did everything possible to deal with an overwhelming situation, not knowing if our little peanut of a daughter was going to live or die in the womb.

Pentecostal Patience

We had to wait. We had to force patience on ourselves. It really was a life and death situation. As Christians, we are waiting for our complete redemption. If we are not patient and do not focus on our hope, we will not make it. 

To be sure, in difficult times it does no good to be like Eeyore and feel sorry for ourselves. Yet, on the other hand, it equally does no one any good to always be smiling, positive, and upbeat as if nothing is worth grieving over. To take such a posture toward the awful challenges of life is to, at best, ignore the power of lament, and, at worst, live in abject denial about what our true situation really is with all its weakness and inability to control most of what is going on.

In the teeth of adverse circumstances, enter God in the person of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit resides with us and strengthens us with Pentecostal power. So, on this Day of Pentecost, we not only celebrate the Spirit’s mighty power to blow a violent wind and upturn history; we also proclaim and praise the Spirit’s power to come alongside and provide the deep inner strength necessary to fortify us for all we must face.

Pentecostal Awkwardness

We cannot run away from what God has put in front of us. We live in an awkward time of spiritual pregnancy in which we possess salvation but do not yet possess it in all its fullness. There is so much groaning going on because we realize there is such a large gap between where we are and where we want to be.  If women could have babies without nine months of struggle, limitation, and pain, I think they would opt for that instead of the way it is now (I know I would!).

All of creation groans because where it is now and where it will be seems like such a long time in coming.  Every creature and all living things are presently experiencing decay and death. The earth is not yet redeemed from its cursed bondage. So, the planet convulses and contracts with natural disasters and diseases because we live in a fallen world that is not yet redeemed.

People groan because they fall victim to circumstances beyond their control. We also groan because of our own poor choices which grieve us. Although we have been delivered from sin, death, and hell, and experience spiritual power, we still must wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies. 

We are keenly aware of the terrible disconnect between where we are as people and where we want to be. It feels like Pinocchio, who is not yet a real boy, and must deal with strings and other puppeteers who don’t care about him, who feels the need to lie because of his situation and pays the consequences of his nose growing.

But we are not left to fend for ourselves. Because the Spirit groans on our behalf, uttering prayerful sounds that words cannot express. The Spirit helps us in our weakness, in our pregnant state of discomfort and wondering. 

“The Holy Spirit is an expert on knowing our concerns, knowing God’s will, and bringing the two in harmony with each other.“

Mit Tdrahrhe

Pentecostal Hope

So, we focus on hope – the confident expectation we will not always be in this position. In the meantime, we learn to enjoy the process of growing in the Lord and discovering the ways of Jesus. We learn to slow down to listen to the gentle voice and the refreshing breeze of the Spirit. During this interim time, this gestation period, we develop new rhythms of life, moving back-and-forth between rejoicing and groaning; praising and grieving; hoping and lamenting; believing and doubting – all with agonizing patience.

Living patiently and hopefully in the Christian life will be worth it all when we see Jesus. We must walk through the valley; yet we never do it alone – God’s presence is with us in the personal provision of the Holy Spirit.

Do not give up in prayer. Even if you do not know what to say or cannot even speak, you can groan because the Spirit will pick up those groans and groan them in the ear of our gracious heavenly Father. The Holy Spirit stands in the gap between where we are and where we need to be. The Spirit intercedes for us, bridging that wide chasm, and bringing us practical deliverance from our impatience.

One of the oldest definitions of prayer is this: Lifting mind and heart to God. Too often in our efforts to pray formally, we fail to truly lift our hearts and minds to God. That’s because what is really in our hearts and minds is not something we generally connect with prayer, at all. Our frustrations, bitterness, jealousies, lusts, curses, sloth, and quiet despair are sometimes understood to be the opposite of prayer, as if they are things overcome so that we can pray.

Pentecostal Power

However, something deeper is happening within: Our frustrations, longings, lusts, jealousies, and escapist daydreams, the things we are fearful and ashamed to name in prayer, are in fact already lifting our hearts and minds to God in more honest ways than we ever do consciously.

If you are carrying a heavy burden, take the light yoke of Jesus and offload your worries to the Holy Spirit who is waiting to intercede for you. And if there is no immediate relief, persevere in prayer without giving up. Pentecostal power is available, but it is not cheap; it will cost us time in prayer as well as patience for the Spirit to work on our behalf. For the Christian life is a lifelong process of becoming.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill our hearts. Kindle within us the fire of your love. Send the gentle breeze of your Spirit, and we shall be renewed into patient people, growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Spirit of the living God, we invite you to wring the death out of our hearts and saturate our souls with your breath and life.  Hoping against all hope we lay defeat aside. We grab for the corner of your cloak and wait for a miracle. Amen.

*Above artwork by Rebecca Brogan

Romans 4:13-25 – Christianity 101

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Exploring Church Ministry Blog, Year BLeave a comment

It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. Therefore “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (NIV)

Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of why we are here on this earth and what we are really supposed to be doing.  There’s just so much stuff going on around us all the time that it seems like we have spiritual attention deficit disorder and cannot focus on what is most important. Certain people irritate us, we scramble to make a decent living, there never seems to be enough time to accomplish everything, and there is adversity and obstacles all along life’s way.

There’s a lot going on in the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. At first glance, like our lives, it seems complicated. Paul had all kinds of words for the Christians such as hope, faith, righteousness, and justification, just to name a few. All those words and ideas funneled into and pointed toward a singular focus: The Lord Jesus. Everything in life comes down to Christ. 

The church was losing sight of why they existed. Within the church at Rome were both Jews and Gentiles, together as one people of God. They didn’t always see eye-to-eye on everything. The Gentiles thought the Jews were stuck in tradition and needed to move on. The Jews had centuries of history behind them of God working through them. They thought the Gentiles needed some solid Old Testament law to bolster their primitive spirituality. Would the church take their cues on life from the Gentiles, or the Jews?

“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”

thomas aquinas

Paul essentially told the church they were headed in the wrong direction. The issues and problems of living the Christian life were to take a back seat to faith in God. To prove his point, Paul went back to Abraham as Exhibit A of what it means to live with and for God. 

It went down like this: God made a promise to Abraham of progeny in his old age; Abraham believed what God said, Abraham demonstrated his faith by having the confident expectation (hope) that God is good for his promise; and God declared (justified) Abraham to have a right relationship with himself (righteousness). 

In other words, the heart of Christian faith and practice is that God makes promises; people respond to God in faith, hope, and love. Law and the willpower to keep it doesn’t even come into the equation.

Christians are the spiritual children of Abraham. All God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ. We respond to God by believing in Jesus. The redemptive events of Jesus make us just and right.  So, what does this mean for you and me?

We are not to get sidetracked with trying to make others be like us. Instead, we are to proclaim the promises of God in Christ so that others might respond by believing and embracing those promises. Furthermore, we have no need to try and get God to like us, notice us, and/or listen to us. God has already made and kept promises to us, demonstrating his love, mercy, and grace through his Son, the Lord Jesus.

Our lives are not to center in our abilities, or lack thereof, to live a godly life. Rather, our lives are to revolve around the person and work of Jesus Christ through faith, with the hope that God will always hold to his promise to be with us, which frees us to love others. This is basic Christianity 101. This is the faith we embrace.

Righteous God, you have made and kept promises to us. Our ultimate deliverance from sin, death, and hell isn’t through our ability to keep the law, but in your Son’s life, death, and resurrection. Help us, your people, to live by faith in Jesus who loved us and gave himself for us, in the strength of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Romans 3:21-31 – 8 Words That Can Change Your Life

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
Statue of Martin Luther in Dresden, Germany

But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (NRSV)

Five-hundred years is a long time. It was that long ago when Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the Wittenberg Church door in Germany. It sparked the flame of Reformation, a legacy we still live with today.  Protestant Christians have a rich spiritual heritage in acknowledging and affirming the veracity of Holy Scripture and its central message of Christ’s good news of salvation.

Eight words changed Martin Luther’s life, changed the course of history and Christianity, and can change our lives, too.

Law

The role of the law is neither to save nor sanctify but to reveal the true state of our hearts. The law can only condemn; it cannot save. Obedience is important yet cannot be done by sheer willpower. Deliverance does not come by turning over a new leaf; that approach only gets one caught in cycle of regret, promising not to do it again, and then returning to it. Law makes us feel the great weight of our darkness. We need to feel and know what that darkness really is….

Sin

Sin means missing the mark, falling short. We must face what sin really is, without sugar-coating it.  We tend to think of sin as some terrible action like assault or murder, yet sin is primarily thought of in Scripture as attempting to de-throne God with a replacement. You and I need to be realistic about the bad news of sin before we can ever receive the good news of forgiveness. Forgiveness will be elusive until we admit what we have done, or not done, something that warrants needing to be forgiven. Moving forward in hope can only happen when we possess…

Righteousness

Righteousness means right relationships; unrighteousness means broken relationships. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right relationships. Like illegal aliens who cannot make themselves citizens, God grants us spiritual amnesty because we cannot make ourselves legal or righteous. Through righteousness God has made it possible for us to live in harmony. Holding onto bad relationships is like a dog returning to its vomit; there is no need for it because God has given us…

Justification

This term is a picture of the court of law. It is a metaphor communicating that righteousness comes because God justified us, that is, did for us what the law could not do – God sent his Son to be a substitute for us. We cannot justify ourselves by obeying the law or simply by being sorry. Without the next word, we will wallow in our guilt because we need this for our justification to really live…

Faith

Faith is a gift given by God. We are unable to generate faith within ourselves because sin estranges us from God. We need divine action. God’s righteousness can only become operative through faith. We must hold out our hands and receive a gift to possess it. We must come to the end of ourselves to exercise faith. We need to see that sin is bad enough to have made life unmanageable and that we have dug a hole too deep to get out of by ourselves. If one thinks they can handle it, then they are going back to the law, living in denial and not by faith.  We also need…

Grace

Faith must have an object, and that object is the cross of Christ. It is grace which gives faith and saves us. Our denial is so great about our sin that we cannot reach out to God unless God acts. Even while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Opening the gift given to us, we find that we are given…

Redemption

Redemption is a word referring to a slave market. We are slaves to sin. We need someone to purchase our freedom. The blood of Christ paid for my sin. Jesus bought me through his death. Jesus has taken care of the sin issue through…

Propitiation

“Sacrifice of atonement” is the meaning of propitiation. It is the satisfaction of God’s wrath against sin.  Because God loves, God has wrath – God is not okay with sin running amok in this world. We are forgiven through the blood of Christ. We are free to live into the gracious joyous life of God in Christ. Yet not all of us do so. For example:

If the institution that gave me my car loan came along and forgave or satisfied the debt I have on my car, it would be weird if I kept making loan payments. But that is what many people keep doing with their lives because they do not really believe they are forgiven and loved by God. We think God is constantly upset or, at least, agitated with us since we screw-up so often. So, we live by law hoping that God will applaud our sincerity and our effort, wishing that everything will be okay. But everything will not be okay with that approach because God wants our faith, not our promises to be better. The Lord asks us:

Do you trust me?  Do you trust me to deliver you from your sin?  Do you trust me to work out the situation that you have made a mess of on your own?  Do you trust me to provide for you everything you need? 

Live into your spiritual heritage. Do not return to the law. Bask in the gracious gift of your freedom in Christ.  Live and enjoy Jesus because you have been made righteous, justified, and redeemed through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit so that we may perfectly love you, and magnify your holy Name in a worthy manner, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.